At just 21 years old, Ethan Thornton is rewriting the rules of modern warfare. He’s the founder and CEO of Mach Industries, a fast-rising defense tech startup that’s just secured $100 million in new funding, co-led by Khosla Ventures and Bedrock Capital, with continued support from Sequoia Capital. This brings Mach’s total raised capital to around $185 million, and the company’s valuation now hovers around $470 million, according to TechCrunch.
Thornton left MIT to focus on Mach full-time, TechCrunch reported, but the company’s origins trace back to his high school years, where he operated a wood and metal workshop to bootstrap initial prototypes.
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Mach Industries Created A New Class Of Military Manufacturing
The Huntington Beach, California-based startup is aiming to revolutionize both defense hardware and the way it’s made. According to TechCrunch, rather than relying on traditional centralized weapons factories, Mach is building “Forge 1,” a 115,000-square-foot facility in Southern California designed to manufacture its most advanced products.
Forge 1 represents the first step in Mach’s broader vision to establish a network of decentralized micro-factories across the U.S. and internationally, each designed to manage the full production process from raw materials to final assembly, TechCrunch reports.
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This distributed approach is part of Thornton’s vision to build a resilient national defense infrastructure, capable of withstanding geopolitical shocks and supply chain disruptions. “Instead of very centralized factories, we will build many, many smaller factories to actually have a survival defense industrial base,” he told TechCrunch. The factories will be designed to take raw materials through final assembly.
According to a company statement on March 18, Mach entered into a partnership with Heven Drones, which will use Forge 1 to assemble and scale unmanned aerial systems.
Viper, Glide, And The Edge Of Space
Mach’s product lineup includes Viper, a jet-powered vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicle that doesn’t require a runway and is up to 300 times cheaper to build than traditional drones. It also builds Glide, a weapon launched from near-space altitudes to increase strike range and reduce the chance of interception. The company claims it could potentially hit any target on Earth without being detected, TechCrunch reports.
Recently, Mach revealed it had been selected by the U.S. Army Applications Laboratory to develop Strategic Strike, a next-generation cruise missile with vertical takeoff capabilities. Initial flight tests have already passed, marking a major milestone in the company’s path to building deployable battlefield systems, according to TechCrunch.
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From Teen Dream To Government Contract
Mach became a breakout name in defense circles after being Sequoia Capital’s first-ever investment in the defense tech sector. The startup’s $5.7 million seed round was led by Sequoia’s Stephanie Zhan and Shaun Maguire in mid-2023, Reuters reports. According to Tech Startups, that funding was followed in October 2023 by a $79 million Series A led by Bedrock Capital.
The most recent round adds Khosla Ventures to the cap table, with investor Keith Rabois leading the deal, TechCrunch reports. Even former Palantir Technologies PLTR recruiter Peterson Conway, known for working with only the most promising startups, now counts Mach among his rare list of clients, TechCrunch writes.
With dozens of employees, a U.S. Army contract, and three groundbreaking products already underway, Mach Industries may be shaping up to become the blueprint for the future of American defense.
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